Definitely a last ditch rifle. The other factor is if it has rifling in the barrel, which is an indicator as to whether it can be shot or not. Sometimes rack numbers can be found on the stock however the arsenal or warehouse they were stored at can also be found.

Yes, that is a series 8 Nagoya built Type 99. It looks to be in very good shape. I highly doubt it was a school rifle, school rifles were usually old beat up Type 38 rifles. This one would have been probably stock pulled for the impending inavasion of the home islands. Not sure what the characters are on the buttstock though.

It does have a rifled barrel, this one came from a grandparent who was in the navy and we have the letter he sent home to his parents saying he's sending two rifles back as a souvenirs along with hundreds of other letters and some pictures. Thanks for the information!

Training rifles usually have a "00" stamped in front of the serial number.

The "00" mark in front of the serial number is just a way to show that a weapon was removed from service and given to some organization like a school or veteran's association. Training rifles never had rifling so they were never pressed into military service aside from their normal duties as educational tools. School rifles on the other hand have 00's in front of their serial numbers because they were retired either due to the fact that they were older firearms or because they failed to meet military standards at the time for whatever reason. These rifles did have rifling and can shoot live ammo whereas training rifles cannot fire a live round